Financial Statements of Large Companies: An Empirical Study of Russian Catering and Hotel Companies

The object of the study is the ownership structure of large companies in food service and hotel businesses in Russia.

The subject of the study is the financial statements of these companies.

The purpose of the study is to investigate large companies in the fields of food service and hotel businesses, and to determine how their structures affect the preparation of financial reports. To achieve this goal, we solved the following tasks: we analyzed the individual financial statements as the main report for a commercial organization. The sufficiency of financial statements to disclose financial position and results have been verified. The consolidated financial statements and their limitations for the formation of aggregate indicators for a group of companies have been considered. The article examines the features of combined financial reporting as a new type of financial reporting and its opportunities at the present time. The author analyzed the ownership structures of large organizations in the fields of food service and hotel businesses. The author assessed the extent to which current approaches to the preparation of financial indicators reveal information about financial situations and results. The empirical basis of the study is information disclosed by large companies on the unified state registry of legal entities and voluntary disclosures made in appendices to their financial statements. The study reveals that existing approaches do not fully facilitate the disclosure of aggregated indicators for a group of companies. As a recommendation, we propose a new type of financial accounting and reporting — additive. The additive financial accounting system focuses on the formation of individual financial statements, consolidated financial statements, and combined financial reports, regardless of the number of companies in the group or ownership structure.

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